Swedish Potato Sausage

Swedish potato sausage is a Christmas Eve tradition at our house. My Mother made it, my Grandmother made it, and her mother made it. Now I make it, and I love it.

Just thinking about it while I was stuffing the casings today made me feel like one of Bob Cratchet's kids - remember how they jumped around squealing in anticipation of the Christmas goose?

Some people think I'm nuts - they don't like it at all. But that's OK, because I wouldn't eat an oyster or caviar if you paid me. (Well, for a million bucks I might as long as I could swallow fast.)

Anyway, if you want to try it, here's what you need:

Sausage casings - you get them from the guy behind the counter at the meat market. I've never seen them on display.

4# pork shoulder - you don't want it too lean
4# beef
8# potatoes
4 smallish onions
2 t. allspice
3 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper

Grind the meat, potatoes, and onions, then add the spices and mix, and mix, and mix.
(This is a 2-handed job.)

Then stuff the meat into the sausage casings, tying off about every 4 or 5 inches to make individual sausages.

Store the completed sausages in a kettle of water until you're ready to cook them - otherwise the potatoes will turn black. That doesn't hurt the taste, but it looks funky. You can freeze what you aren't going to use immediately.

Drop the sausages into boiling water and let them cook for 45 minutes. You can serve them hot, which is good. But I especially love them cold as snacks. Some people dip them in a bit of mustard.

For me this job is a bit time-consuming, but not difficult. Last year we bought a good grinder with a sausage stuffing attachment. But before that, I used one of those hand-grinders - just like my Grandmother and Great Grandmother used.

Before we got the new "stuffer," I had a terrible time finding something to put the casings on so I could stuff them, and finally purchased a "fat funnel" from the automotive department in the hardware store. That worked, but it was sure messy and it took a lot of hours to stuff 16# of sausage.

Every time I make potato sausage I'm reminded of how my Great-Grandmother did it. She had a grinder, but Grandmother said to stuff the casings she used a hollowed out cow's horn. I suppose that worked better than my little short, fat funnel.